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Gender bender Storms with feminine names may kill three times as many victims because people do not perceive them as being as threatening as storms named after men, say scientists.

Cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons are named by a pre-determined, alternating order that has nothing to do with the strength of the approaching storm. Scientists developed in the system in the 1970s to avoid the perception of gender bias.

Researchers at the University of Illinois analysed data on fatalities from every hurricane that made landfall in the United States from 1950-2012.

They ranked all hurricane names according to their degree of femininitiy and compared the number of deaths caused by each.

"A hurricane with a relatively masculine name is estimated to cause 15.15 deaths, whereas a hurricane with a relatively feminine name is estimated to cause 41.84 deaths," according to the study.

"In other words, our model suggests that changing a severe hurricane's name from Charley to Eloise could nearly triple its death toll."

Scientists even disregarded two major storms in their analysis — Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Audrey (1957) — because they took an outsized number of lives and could have skewed the results.

"In judging the intensity of a storm, people appear to be applying their beliefs about how men and women behave," says co-author Sharon Shavitt, a professor of marketing.

"This makes a female-named hurricane, especially one with a very feminine name such as Belle or Cindy, seem gentler and less violent."

Researchers also found that when they asked people to imagine being in the path of a hurricane named Alexandra, Christina or Victoria, they rated it as less risky and intense than imagined storms named Alexander, Christopher or Victor.

"This is a tremendously important finding," says Hazel Rose Markus, a professor in behavioural sciences at Stanford University, who was not involved in the study.

Prior to the decision in the late 1970s to alternate male and female names, hurricanes were only given feminine names, a practice born out of the belief that storms, like women, were unpredictable.

Researchers say their study suggests that another change may be in order.

"For policymakers, these findings suggest the value of considering a new system for hurricane naming to reduce the influence of biases on hurricane risk assessments and to motivate optimal preparedness," the study concludes.